<cfspreadsheet action="read" src="the file name to read" query="name of the query variable where you want to store the result" columnnames="the name of the coloumns tou want to show in query. for multiple coloumn name seperate them by comma" rows="start row to end row"

columns="The coloumn in sheet" sheet="sheet number" />

I don't know about the attribute "excludeHeaderRow" . Please take look at following attributes.

Rows=Here you will provide the range of row. Like a value "3-15" decide read 3rd row to 15th row of the xls sheet. Now if we consider that header row is the first row and total no mof row is 20, if want to avoid the header row then just put "2-20" in rows attribute.

Well, it's an old post, but for people who search for the answer ,the answer is this. It's very simple and the poster almost had it. Except he had "excludeHeaderRow='false'". So this means, do NOT exclude headerrow. It should've read "exludeheaderrow='true'". This will only work if you have Coldfusion 9.01 or higher.